


Five Times Narvin Wasn’t Scolded for Showing Emotion, and One Time He Was

by JaneTurenne



Category: Gallifrey (Big Finish Audio)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-07
Updated: 2018-05-07
Packaged: 2019-05-03 17:08:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14573619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaneTurenne/pseuds/JaneTurenne
Summary: Time Lords aren’t meant to display their feelings—and, despite the odds, a Time Lord is the only thing Narvin has ever wanted to be.  Narvin character study, with a side of shippery.





	Five Times Narvin Wasn’t Scolded for Showing Emotion, and One Time He Was

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thejabberwocki](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thejabberwocki/gifts).



> Written to a prompt from the lovely [thejabberwocki](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thejabberwocki/pseuds/IsolatedThinker)
> 
> While this Narvin isn’t the same one I roleplay, the backstory in this fic was heavily influenced by headcanons devised for the world of RP. Nowhere is this more evident than in Part Two, much of which was cribbed wholesale, word-for-word, from an RP thread I wrote years ago with [fatalcookies](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FatalCookies/pseuds/FatalCookies) on our tumblr accounts @theladycardinal and @coordinatrix. I could never have written a new version of that exchange that would’ve been half as emotional as the original, and failed to see who would benefit by fixing what wasn’t broken. Those posts have been edited to fit this fic, with Jennie’s blessing, and she very much deserves co-authorial credit for that section. 
> 
> Also, if y’all would kindly just trust me as far as Part Three before concluding that I don’t know the name of my all-time favorite character, I would be very much obliged. I do know. I promise.

****Five)

 

The damp heat of the bayou summer is always a walking suffocation, but the year of Narvin’s eighth birthday, the misery runs deeper than sweat and flies.

House Min—unfashionable, crowded, poor—may not love Narvintrolonem as well as the loomlings they planned for and wanted, but they have always tolerated him, at least.  They have tried to ignore the stain of his parentage, knowing that the sins of their prodigal son cannot be blamed on the Time Tot he dropped in their laps. The child is quiet, well-behaved, in spite or perhaps because of the unsteady existence he sustained before his miscreant parents concluded that their experiment in childrearing was no longer worth the trouble.  If their own children, quite naturally, occupy the bulk of their already overtaxed resources, the adults of Min cannot, at least, be accused of _mistreating_ their young ward.

No one, in truth, has thought much about him one way or the other, until the results of the Exams.

In the branches of the twisted redburl tree, Narvin freezes, his stomach churning.  He had thought his hiding place a safe one, but the noise and shake as the tree trunk vibrates prove him mistaken in that assessment.  “Come down, boy,” calls a voice, as old and gnarled as the tree itself. “I have something to say to you.”

Narvin shins down the trunk, reluctantly, fear like tar weighing down his chest and slowing his limbs.  Randax waits on the ground—not actually the oldest Min cousin, not quite, but the one who seems as though he _ought_ to be.   “Sit,” Randax says, tapping a patch of grass with the same walking stick he has so recently thumped against Narvin’s sanctuary.  “We are going to have a talk.”

Narvin would have preferred not to sit on the ground.  He may have taken to tree-climbing out of necessity, but as a rule, the prospect of dirtying his robes makes him nervous.  Robes are, more or less, the only objects in the universe that Narvin can truly say belong to him—and even then on sufferance, and only more-or-less.  Still, _attention_ is even more appalling than grass-stains.  He does as he is bidden.

Randax, for his part, remains standing, leaning on his stick.  “So,” he says, staring hard at Narvin, who wishes—as so often, and no matter how small he might be already—that he could be smaller still, “you’re the Time Tot who’s causing all the trouble.”

Narvin stares hard at Randax’s robes, the shiny-worn patches above his knees, trying hard not to blush, trying hard not to cry.  He wants badly to protest, but what good would it do? Contradicting an elder would only make everything worse. “Yes, sir.”

“Good for you.”

Narvin blinks, looking up into Randax’s face.  “The Academy Exams are a boondoggle, child. Do you know what I mean by that?”

Narvin hates to have to admit a failing, but he shakes his head slowly for ‘no’.  “The High Housers,” says Randax, “know that they could easily send _all_ loomlings to the Academies—but they won’t.  That would pose too much of a challenge to their own precious, inbred little spawn.  But they also cannot shut us out entirely. We outnumber them fifty to one, after all, and _cannot_ be allowed to understand how artificial their power really is.  And so they give us hope, just _enough_ hope that one of our own might succeed in their world, so we won’t tear that world down—and they use that hope as a way to turn us against one another.  To make us hate the lucky ones, who a day ago were only ourselves.”

Class warfare is not a small idea for the brain of an eight-year-old, however clever.  Still, Narvin tries. He always tries. “With only one Academy scholarship for any Time Tot in our House, of course the others will resent you for taking it,” Randax goes on.  “But that only proves that they are fools. You did not make this situation, Narvintrolonem. You have done nothing to deserve their hate.”

The _relief_ of those words hits him like an avalanche, too heavy for his small bones.  He bends under the weight of it, knowing that he is showing his feelings on his face, a thing that he must never do.

Randax bends down, extending a finger to nudge up Narvin’s chin.  “Are you afraid, child?”

“Yes, sir,” Narvin whispers.

“Then you’re not a damned fool,” says Randax, with an approving nod, and straightens up again.  He turns, and begins his slow hobble away, out of the garden. “You give those High Housers hell for me, boy.”

For a moment, Narvin is too overwhelmed to say anything at all.  Then he remembers his manners. “Thank you, sir,” he calls.

Randax only waves back over his shoulder.

  


Four)

 

Narvin only wishes that the young heir to House Idylsound was an atypical customer.   

After fifteen years working for Karastarian, Narvin _should_ be used to entitled High House brats by now.  The Patrexi Academy has only the one official purveyor of robes to its students, serving every class of attendee—but those purveyors see the High Housers far more often.  The rich bow to the whims of fashion, replacing their Time Tots’ wardrobes with the season, while Low House students put off visits to the tailor as long as possible, making one set of robes last for as long as they can manage.  Which means that five out of every six visits comes from a spoiled little _coprolite_ like this one.  Which means that Narvin should, he _should_ , be used to this by now, he _should_ be able to continue quietly sweeping in the background—and he would be, if his fellow student hadn’t chosen to vent her arrogance on Kara.

“Ouch!” squeals Lydellaberiacoskella, when Narvin knows, full-well knows, that Kara’s steady hands have never in their lives pricked a customer.  “Be careful with those pins!”

“A thousand apologies,” murmurs Kara, as perfectly composed as if Lydella had instead been singing their praises.

Narvin had been only twelve when he arrived on the tailor’s doorstep.  It had taken until his robes were quite literally coming apart at the seams before the shame of begging was finally overcome by the shame of hopelessness.  Not that it had come to begging, in the end. One look at him as he stood in Kara’s workshop had immediately conveyed the problem, and the tailor had, as usual, done their work quietly and efficiently.  

Kara hadn’t _needed_ to take pity on the terrified boy in his tattered heliotrope, abandoned by the House that wanted their Academe to be any loomling but him and was unwilling to throw good money after bad to finance him properly.  Kara hadn’t _needed_ to sew new clothes for a student without a single Pandak to pay for the work, never mind hiring that same student on to do whatever little chores he could manage between classes and constant studying.  Narvin will never cease to be astonished and humbled by Kara’s compassion and even more so by the _unobtrusiveness_ of it, the unspeakable kindness not only of doing the generous thing but of making Narvin feel that it was Kara themself who benefited from that unequal exchange.  He has never had a word for how he feels for Kara, the gratitude and protectiveness and devotion—but he knows that it blazes to a scorching point when Lydella of Idylsound gives Kara a deliberate nudge with her booted foot that tips the tailor backwards.

“Clumsy _and_ graceless,” Lydella says, her lip curling in cruel amusement.  “You’d think someone who works with their _hands_ , like an _outlander_ , would be more coordinated.”

And what Narvin wants to do, what he _wants_ to do, is press the handle of his broom to Lydella’s throat.  He wants to hear her gasp with honest fear, he wants to tell her what a _waste_ she is, how she’s never in her _life_ done anything but _take_ , and how _dare_ she, how _dare_ she think herself better than Kara, wonderful Kara, who every day of their lives _makes_ things with the work of those _perfectly_ dexterous hands, and what _is_ all that genetic engineering that went into Lydella but a _waste_ , what will she ever be but a drain on the resources of the universe, and how could the world possibly be so _unfair_ that…

Narvin gets himself tucked away in a dressing room, the door closed behind him, just in time to stifle his sob.

 _He_ is the useless one.  If he was brave, he would say something, do something.  He wouldn’t be so _afraid_ all the time.  How can he accuse anyone else of being pathetic, when he himself is nothing but a drain on Kara, who has been so good to him?  When he can’t even defend the person who is nearer to a parent than anyone else has ever been, who he cares about so much it _hurts_ him sometimes, a compression in his chest—and is that what it feels like to love someone, and how would Narvin know?

The door to the dressing room swings open.  Narvin draws in a sharp, snuffling breath and tries to wipe away his tears, even more ashamed and mortified than before.  But Kara doesn’t speak sharply, doesn’t even look at him with contempt. They sit beside Narvin and, to Narvin’s startlement, take his hands.  He doesn’t remember the last time somebody touched him.

“You’re quite right, my boy,” says Kara—the first time they have called him that, the first time anyone has called him that.  “It isn’t fair. Not even close.”

Just to hear someone say it means more, infinitely more, than Narvin can tell—but not as much as the way Kara holds him and lets him cry.

  


Three)

 

“Sub-Coordinator Narvin,” says Coordinator Vansell.  “The new regeneration suits you.”

Narvin gives a pleased blink.  “Thank you, sir.”

“Come in and have a seat.”

“May I please stand, Coordinator?”  He’s more contented this way, feet squared, arms crossed behind his back.  This regeneration is a little more comfortable, a little _easier_ in himself than the last was, as he’s heard second bodies often are; the worry lines have eased in this face, and not yet had time to regrow.  But that doesn’t mean that he has lost his affinity for formality.

“As you like.”  Vansell sits instead, behind his desk.  “I’ve good news for you, Sub-Coordinator.”

“Is the Nekkistani cleanup going well?”

“It is, but I meant good news on a more personal level.”  Narvin raises his eyebrows, but lets Vansell go on. “You did exemplary work on Nekkistan, Narvin, and at the cost of your own life besides.  I’ve been pushing in official channels to see you commended properly. I found out this morning that my request has been approved.”

He slides a piece of paper across the table.  It contains a single text circle—a name, like Narvin’s, but _more_ than before.  “Congratulations, Narvinektrolonem.”

Narvin’s breath freezes.  “Narvi _nek_ trolonem?” he whispers.  

Other species, Narvin has learned to his bafflement, have no rules for the names of their children.  On Gallifrey, however, a syllable can mean so _much_.  Every Gallifreyan child is entitled to five of them—the children of High Houses, automatically, to six.  After that more may only be added as honorifics, bestowed by the High Council and passed hereditarily down through bloodlines.  Some loomlings from the very oldest families may be born with as many as nine.

No loomling from House Min has had a sixth syllable, ever.  No lowborn Patrexi of _any_ House has been given an honorary syllable in three millennia.

Narvin stares at that paper, certain it is a lie—and, while he is distracted, the smile steals over his lips.  He tucks it away almost immediately, mortified to have shown such pride before the Coordinator, of all people.

“It’s all right, Sub-Coordinator,” says Vansell, with wry amusement.  “I’m fairly certain that you’ve earned a grin.”

This smile is slower but even wider, an absolute _beam_ that lights up Narvin’s whole face.  “Thank you, Coordinator,” he says. “Thank you so much.”

A smirk tugs at the corner of Vansell’s mouth.  “It’s not traditional for a Coordinator to encourage potential assassins,” he says.  “If I tell you that I’m grooming you as my successor, Narvin, will you promise not to kill me in my sleep?”

And just when Narvin thought he’d got his breath back, he loses it all over again.  “Sir?” he asks, astonished.

“I didn’t _really_ need an answer to that question, but nevertheless, I _would_ find it reassuring,” Vansell quips.

Narvin needs another moment of open-mouthed staring—but then, from somewhere, he locates the vein of sarcasm in him that regeneration has unearthed.  “What kind of CIA Agent would I be if I made any promises in that regard?”

Vansell laughs.  “Good, good,” he says, standing to hand over Narvin’s new proof of pedigree.  “Dismissed, Sub-Coordinator.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Narvin— _Narvinektrolonem_ , he thinks again, _Narvi_ nek _trolonem_ —leaves the Coordinator’s office in such a daze of happiness, it’s a wonder that his boots touch the floor.

  


Two)

 

Narvin doesn’t _like_ brandy any more than he likes Braxiatel, but a drink with the Chancellor of an evening does have its utility.  Narvin has never been anything if not practical. Gulping down alien swill is a small price for knowing one’s enemy. 

“I am _not_ a xenophobe,” Narvin says for the dozenth time, swirling the liquid in his glass rather than drink it.  Politics is their subject this evening, as it is _always_ their subject.  “I am paranoid. There’s a difference.  It’s my _job_ to be paranoid.  I am the person _meant_ to be thinking in terms of worst-case scenarios.  And the worst case of allowing foreign students into the Academy?  Is _unspeakably_ bad.”

“Oh, indubitably,” says Brax, brushing a stray drop of brandy from that ridiculous moustache.  “Under the influence of the foreign students, our Time Tots might go so far as to _approve_ of other cultures.  That would never do.”

“Don’t be glib, Braxiatel.  If your little experiment goes wrong, it could mean war with the other temporal powers or political chaos at home.  If doing what I can to avert that makes me a xenophobe in your eyes—fine. I can take that. I signed up for it. But do me the courtesy of permitting me to do my job.”

“This is not, in fact, a question of fear, Coordinator.”  Brax’s gaze is suddenly sharper than usual, and Narvin remembers, as he ought never to forget, that this is a dangerous person.  “It is about what we Gallifreyans have been made to believe about ourselves. We, the great. We, the powerful. We, the better. With an upbringing like that, it can be appallingly difficult to see anyone else at all. I would go so far as to say that the product of xenophobia is not fear at all. It is blindness. A simple refusal to look at other species with a similar regard that we pay to our own.”

Narvin’s face drains itself of expression.  He sets down his glass—but not soon enough, it seems.  He is fairly certain that the alcohol plays some part in what comes out of his mouth.

“‘We, the better,’” he repeats.  “You don’t even begin to see the problem, do you?  Irving Braxiatel, youngest Prydonian Cardinal in ten thousand years, heir to House Lungbarrow?  No. No, you wouldn’t.”

Braxiatel’s head is quirked with interest at the simmering anger beneath Narvin’s tone.  Narvin, unwisely, ignores that danger sign.

“Do you know who this planet doesn’t see?” Narvin asks.  “ _Everyone_ .  Everyone but the children of its precious High Houses–just like, oh, for example, a certain schoolgirl President who was always too young, too inexperienced, too naive for this job, and had it _handed_ to her, and now, in your Lungbarrow eyes, can do no wrong in it.  Or like a certain Castellan, so wet it’s a miracle he doesn’t drown, who has all of the same _sparkling_ qualifications.

“Do you know why I hate Andred so much, my Lord Cardinal?  Because nobody has ever heard of House Deeptree. But I don’t mean that statement the way you would mean it, the way you think I mean it–just the opposite.  I hate him because we’re _alike_.  Came up from nothing.  Being nobody. Being unseen.”

Narvin has never, _never_ said this.  He keeps saying it.  He cannot, it seems, stop.

“Do you know how long it had been since the Castellan of Gallifrey and the Head of the CIA were both, simultaneously, members of Low Houses?  Never. It had _never_ happened before.  Andred and I, we could have done something with that.  We could have _changed_ things.  Just as liberal an agenda as any of yours.  Except that he threw away the respect he’d worked so hard to earn—and for what, precisely?  A pretty face and a pair of naked legs? And then was _blind_ enough to mistake my personal dislike of his selfishness for some deep, dark CIA scheme, and squandered everything he still had left in rooting it out.

“Do you know who cannot attend the Academy, Cardinal?  Outlanders. Native Gallifreyans, born and bred on this planet, but denied entry even should they wish it by millennia of custom.  Do you know who are, to all practical purposes, unable to attend? Ninety-four percent of the children of Low Houses. It’s an _investment_ , making a Time Lord.  Do you understand what that means, Cardinal Braxiatel?  It means that as a child of a Low House, if you want a future– _any_ chance of a future–you must prove your potential before the age of _eight_.  Because a Low House can only afford to send so many of its heirs to the Academy.  It can only _invest_ in so many.  And so the miniscule percentage of Academy students who are from Low Houses?  Have worked from the _cradle_ to earn that privilege, and worked every day of their time at the Academy to prove that they still deserve it, only to be scorned and ignored in-school and out.  To go unseen.

“You could fix that.  You, and the Lady President.  You have the power to push through reforms when you truly want them, as you’ve already shown.  And instead? When both of you swore to protect _this_ planet and its people?  You’ve decided that class is a better indicator of who is _like you_.  That little Yevnoni student I saw you speaking with after your speech at the Academy–yes, she has a tail, but she’s a _Grand Duchess_ , so we must all needs make her feel welcome.  Then you went for a chat with the human boy whose mother owns five star systems.  When in that same year at the Prydonian Academy, there are twenty-seven lowborn Gallifreyan students, including at least two who are as bright as any Goodlight or Heartshaven.  And I promise you that I understand what I am talking about when I say that one _word_ from the Time Lord billing himself as Chancellor of the Academy, whether he has earned it or not, would mean so _desperately_ much to those children who you and every other person in power on this planet are too _blind_ to see.”

Narvin realizes that he is shaking.  The anger came on him from nowhere, too little sleep and too much caring–-caring about what Braxiatel, in particular, thinks, because Brax sees so _much_ , he should _see-_ –leaving Narvin torn suddenly open at the seams.  

“You talk about hatred,” he says, trying to sound more measured.  “Ancient, stupid hatreds that our very way of life supports. You talk about the inability to see people for what they are.  You tell me that I am less qualified to speak for the people of Gallifrey than you are. And that’s true from your perspective, because to you, Gallifrey means three tenths of one percent.  The percentage of the population that comes from the five Prydonian High Houses.

“I don’t speak for _you_.  I don’t want to.  But understand this, my Lord Cardinal.  When you stand up and spin those silver-tongued speeches, and talk about how aliens deserve opportunity, and it’s our job to give it to them?  No amount of pretty words is going to convince the group of Gallifreyans who never had any opportunity themselves. It is never going to feel like anything but a slap in the face and a stab to the hearts for those you could help, but decline to."  He meets Brax’s eyes, full-on. "I have my weaknesses, the same as you, Braxiatel. But there’s only so much ceding the moral high ground I can take. _Yes_ , I am more concerned with Gallifreyans than with aliens.  But if that makes me a bigot in your eyes, know that it makes you a hypocrite in mine.”

Braxiatel only watches, for a long time.  Then he sets down his glass and leans forward.

“As liberal as my agenda, you say?” asks Braxiatel, his eyes solemn. “Oh, Narvin, I hope so. I do hope so.

“You have seen the state of the universe lately, I am sure. The petty fights breaking out, concerns over the fabric of time and the uses thereof.  We may trade our little witticisms, you and I, Narvin, but I do not, in point of fact, believe you unintelligent. Do you want to know what keeps me up at night? We _are_ edging up on war, Narvin.  That is my fear, too. But now— please. I beg you to listen, for this is exactly the sort of thing which should be said to everyone, and won’t be.

“Because it _does not excuse me_. You are right.  The fact of the matter is that one directs one’s words to an audience, and the moment one chooses to whom one _will_ speak, one turns the back of one’s head to someone else. Someone is bound to be left out of the mix—someone who ought not to be. Least of all our own people.  I am, as you point out, a child of privilege—and I am, loath though I am to admit it, no doubt blinded by it—but I am also not completely callous to the matter.

“The exertion of effort creates entropy. These things which require energy and effort, the pushing of an agenda, these are all short lived. Come by in a burst, live your great life, make a spark of heat in the world and then die. Oh, but if you could only stand, why—you’d live forever! Never mind you are hardly breathing, you are immovable. You will last ages—doing precisely nothing. What makes us the same is that neither of us wants to take that track, Narvin.  What makes us different is only the direction we approach from.

“If war is coming, then may our efforts at the Academy prevent it. May we greet these people who look so strangely different from our own faces. May we learn to accept them, too, as equals in this great, wide universe. May we prevent disaster, looking to the people who are nothing like us, except in their class. And when we manage that—and rest assured that someone who pushes a liberal agenda so ardently cannot last in politics a fraction as long as someone who does not—well. Then perhaps we will stop looking across faces and begin looking across class. And perhaps, by then, it will be easier. Someone new, with great vision, will have the idea. Because the precedent will be set. How unthinkable can it be, after all, to offer our own the chance—the very people with whom we share a world and a history—if we have given the opportunity elsewhere? What more benefits are there to be had from greater collaboration and opportunity? If we can reach out hands across worlds, why not, then, to the Houses we ignore…?”

Braxiatel leans back, again, letting out his breath in a soft huff.

“You are right,” he says. “I should have words for them. Perhaps I will have that honor, if we can only play this political game well enough, for long enough.”

Narvin feels wrung out, hollow and lightheaded.  But he is also—and he hates it-—grateful, so grateful, that Brax has not belittled or dismissed him.  He will owe Brax for a long time, for that. “The cardinal sin of any political ideology,” Narvin says, in an exhausted almost-whisper, “lies in who it asks to wait.”

Braxiatel is opening his mouth to reply when the Matrix viewscreen across the room springs to life without warning.  “Brax,” says the Lady President’s voice. “There’s a situation.” Romana glances into the room. “Is that Narvin? Bring him, too.”   Romana terminates the connection before either of them can say a word.

Brax turns back to Narvin.  “And there,” Brax says, with his typical bright cheerfulness, but a heaviness behind it, “speaks the voice of one who will _not_ be kept waiting.”  Braxiatel smirks. “Fortunate, isn’t it, that you don’t really _like_ brandy?  As amusing as it would be to watch you Coordinate under the influence, I believe I prefer you _un_ -sacked for unprofessional behavior.  I’ve only just got used to your particular set of peculiarities, Narvin.  I should prefer not to be compelled to adjust myself to a new Coordinator just yet.”

“That’s funny,” says Narvin, already making his way to the door.  “If _anyone_ else were made Chancellor, I think I would throw a parade.”

“Charming to the last,” says Braxiatel, and follows Narvin out.

 

 

One)

 

Their titles may be different, but the arguments are the same.

“You _cannot_ keep doing this,” Narvin fumes, pacing up and down in Romana’s quarters.  “They _murdered_ one Romana already on this world, Madam P… Supreme Leader.”

“I hardly think forms of address are of paramount importance when you’ve just mentioned my other self’s assassination, _Chancellor_.  If anyone is listening, the cat was already fairly well out of the bag.”

Narvin refuses to let himself be distracted from the main point by quibbling about training himself to call her by the right name.  Unfortunately, the time he spends telling himself not to engage on that point allows her to sweep in and distract him with something else instead.  “Who would put a _cat_ in a _bag_?”

“It’s an _idiom_ , Narvin,” Romana says, rolling her eyes.

“I grasp that, but...”  Narvin wrestles himself back under control.  “No. Never mind that. We were _talking_ about your recklessness.”

“No, we were not.   _You_ were lecturing me for the unforgivable sin of _taking a walk_.”

“Alone!  For no reason!  In the _Outlands_!”

“I have no need to defend myself to you, Narvin.  I am a fully grown adult and your President besides.  If I wish to take a stroll, I will do so.”

“When a reasonable president _wishes to take a stroll_ , she doesn’t dismiss her guards.”

“We’re on Gallifrey.  We aren’t talking about wandering aimlessly through a foreign capital.  I know full well how _that_ prospect would make you break out in hives.”

“We’re on a _hostile_ Gallifrey!  You’re too intelligent to get away with playing stupid, Romana.”

Romana’s mouth tightens.  “Little as I enjoy the prospect of dictatorship, since that is the position in which I find myself, then—fine.  You are encouraged as ever to disagree with me on matters of policy, and I’m entirely certain that you will, _vociferously_.  But on my own time, for my own, entirely apolitical purposes, I may _do as I like_.”

The sudden cold of Romana’s tone reflects itself on Narvin.  “No,” he insists. “Possibly nobody has ever taken the trouble to mention this to you before, my _Lady Romanadvoratrelundar_ , Heir to House Heartshaven, Inheritor of House Dvora, Custodian of House Everstone, but you _cannot_ always have everything you want.  Not even you.”

They have been furious with one another more times before than he can count—but it isn’t usually personal.  She goes still and hard, and hisses, “How _dare_ you.”

He could escalate further.  He could. It would be like them both, if he did.  

“I dare,” he says, suddenly exhausted, “because the number of friends I have had in my lives can be comfortably counted on one hand—and because you are the only one I have left—and because I don’t want you to die in this _wretched_ place, and leave me entirely alone.”  He looks past her, setting his jaw. “I don’t want you to die anywhere, actually, but you want to martyr yourself so badly that all I can hope you will give me is ‘not here.’”

Romana is silent for one nanospan, then two, then five.  He dares, finally, to look her in the eye, and finds an expression on her face that he has never seen there before.  He didn’t know Romana _could_ look lost.

“Leela,” she mumbles, finally.  “I was out in the Outlands looking for Leela.  Not looking, really—I wouldn’t know where to start.  Just… hoping.” It’s Romana’s turn to focus somewhere near his shoulder.  “I thought the guards might frighten her away.”

He nods, and looks down.  “I know,” he says, voice rough in his throat.  “I… miss her too.”

He is terrified that she will mock him.  But Romana swallows, and bites her lip. “Do you… want to come with me?”

Narvin’s breathing doesn’t seem to be functioning.  “Yes,” he whispers.

Romana nods, and suddenly she’s back to herself, nearly.  “Come on, then,” she says, with all of her usual brisk decision, already heading for the door.

He blinks.  “ _Now_?” he asks, hurrying after her.

“Come along, Chancellor,” Romana calls back over her shoulder.

But as they pass in the doorway, she reaches out and, briefly, squeezes his hand.

  


Zero)

 

Braxiatel isn’t only a keeper of secrets.  He is a _breeder_ of secrets.  Everyone in his orbit becomes more furtive just by knowing him.

He tells Narvin things during that last brief rescue that Narvin cannot bring himself to repeat to Romana, as Brax knew Narvin wouldn’t.   He tells Narvin what is coming for them. He tells Narvin—to Narvin’s utter astonishment—that he _envies_ him.

“I’m sorry?” Narvin asks, aghast.

Brax’s smile is tight.  “Who’d have thought it?” he asks.  “A thousand pardons, Deputy Coordinator, but you’re hardly the romantic hero type, are you?”  And Narvin sees something in Brax’s eyes, almost a hatred, a bitter longing to be someone he once might have been, as Brax tells Narvin where Leela is, and how to save her—and what to do next.

And the thing is, Narvin _despises_ playing Brax’s games—and the thing is, Romana needs him—and the thing is, duty to Gallifrey, _being a Time Lord_ , has always, always come first—

And the thing is, the world is ending, and none of that matters at all.

The vortex yawns impossibly vast and blinding, the endless swirling chaos of Initiation.  All he can see is Leela, pasts and futures in her eyes. Narvin reaches out through the empty door of his TARDIS—nearly falling himself, nearly letting her go—and he’s afraid, so afraid, that she’ll die with his name on her lips.  And then he falls back, into his TARDIS, and drags her with him, and they fall in a heap on his console room floor.

“Narvin,” she says again, and never in his lives has he been touching someone over so much of their bodies, legs tangled over and under, arms wrapped around one another.  “You came for me.”

His mouth turns to ashes, just when he ought to be feeling pure _joy_. Leela is changing.  She is aging in front of him, that sudden sharp exposure to time stripping away the protections that Gallifrey has afforded her over the centuries.  She is beautiful, still, as much as ever, more, with grey in her hair and wrinkles beside her eyes—but he remembers with a thrill of horror that humans aren’t _meant_ to live even close to as long as she has.  She’s going to die. He saved her, but she is going to _die_ , right here, right now, in his arms.

“No,” he says, his eyes wide, his hearts pounding.  “No, no, no, _no_.”

And for once—her influence, he does not doubt it—he acts on pure instinct, without weighing options or costs.

Artron energy is not a non-renewable resource; it is merely a slow one.  His was ripped from him, savagely, but he has been so _careful_.  He has shepherded his centuries since that fiasco on the Axis, feeling the slow drip of golden energy filling him, reserves inching painstakingly from empty to marginal.  He has always been patient, and never been flashy. He can wait.

He was there.  He’s fairly sure.  It’s not an exact science, but he thinks so.  He could’ve survived one more regeneration. He couldn’t have, if he’d been shot on that alternate Gallifrey—but he might have today.   He might’ve got another after that, if his third life had been as long as his second. He might, by being careful, by being small, by being _Narvin_ , have ekked out a proper Time Lord span of living.  ‘Time Lord’ means ‘regenerator,’ a thing he’s worked so _hard_ to be, and he might, at last, have been one in the end.

What part of those lives would ever have been worth living, anyway?

He opens his hands.  Golden light pours from him.  It spills from his eyes and the beds of his fingernails, pours from his open mouth.  It passes from his pores into Leela’s skin, filling her, it streams in cascades over the strands of her hair and the planes of her body.  Time rewrites Leela for the second time in as many microspans, and leaves her as she was—herself, her only human self, and the shimmering fire flickers in his belly, and goes out.

“Narvin,” Leela asks him, wide-eyed, “what did you just do?”

“I…” Of all the moments, now should not be when he worries about showing her too much—and yet that is what stutters his tongue, not difficulty in making her understand.  “...I gave you… time.”

“Like a regeneration?” she asks, sitting up in alarm.

“Not really,” he soothes her, sitting too, missing her already.  “Don’t worry, Leela—you haven’t changed. I know you that well.”

He tries to smile a little, to coax one from her, but she isn’t having it.  “Then what _is_ it like?  I feel… strange.  Like I am full of bees buzzing.”

“That will fade,” he assures her.  “It’s artron, Leela. The same energy we use to regenerate, but I used it to… well, to fend off the Vortex.  It’s hard not to anthropomorphize, but…” She makes a face at him, and he surrenders. “...It wanted all of the time you shouldn’t have.  The extra years you’ve gained by living on Gallifrey, in the protection of our temporal fields. That exposure to the Vortex was… stripping away your armor, if you like.  I put it back.”

“But do you not need this artron?” she asks.  “If it is what you use to regenerate?”

He should lie.  He has been meaning, at some point, somehow, to teach himself to lie. 

His hesitation is long enough for Leela to understand the truth.  Her eyes widen. She leaps to her feet.

“Why would you do this?” she asks, and she’s _angry_.  Of all the reactions he has been expecting, he was not, for once, expecting this, and he’s left shell-shocked and _hurt_.  “Why would you do such a thing?”

He scrambles to standing too, and pays for it; he’s light-headed after that exertion.  “To save you!” he gasps. “Why else?”

“And what makes you think I would want that?” she shouts back.  “To live because you die, to take such a thing from you?”

“Leela,” he says, wide-eyed, pleading, “how could you expect me to—”

She’s turning away from him, and he’s gasping, gutted, and he cannot, he _can’t_ —

He catches her by the hand, and he shows.

Even though she has few proper psychic defenses, even though she trusts him, it isn’t easy to interface with her mind.  They aren’t exactly compatible on that level, not without work. But he shows her, the best that he can.

He shows her the frightened boy.  He shows her the angry youth. He shows her the feeling of living in shadow, the presumption of _less_.  He shows her the gorging on scraps, grateful yet even angrier, shows her the shadow of Romana and Brax and their orbit, their gravitational pull, shows her how he was programmed to respond to them, shows her the hatred and the love he feels for them, the gratitude for the ways they try and the bitterness for the ways they fail to see him as more than his genes and his name, how hard it is for _him_ to see _them_.  He shows her what Gallifrey _actually_ means, the world she has lived on all this time yet never been a part of, in its ugliness and its beauty, and he shows her him, everything that _he_ has been, too.

He shows her his love for her, pulsing warm in his lungs.

“I was never meant to be a Time Lord,” he says.  “A Gallifreyan, yes. A Time Lord, no. I was never _meant_ to be able to regenerate.  Nobody wanted that for me. No one expected it.  I have spent my lives, my _whole lives_ wanting what Gallifrey wanted me to want, but didn’t want me to have. I have fought and scrabbled, sacrificed and schemed, defended my stolen rights with everything I was, but I never actually asked myself what _I_ wanted, what I _really_ wanted.”  He turns her face towards him, only daring touch her cheek for an instant before dropping his hand.  “You are the first thing,” he says. “The only thing I ever _chose_ to want.  You are the only thing I ever decided on for myself.”

He closes the space between them, a small matter of a step.  “I don’t _want_ to be a Time Lord,” he says.  With infinite care, with infinite slowness, he lifts her hand to kiss the backs of her knuckles, closing his eyes.  “I want _you_.”

She is still for a long moment.  He does not open his eyes. Then her index finger brushes down, tugging his lower lip out of shape, and the intimacy of that minuscule touch stops his hearts.  She brushes reverent fingertips along his cheekbones, traces the line of his nose, before sliding her hand back into his hair, and adding the second to join it.

“That is lucky,” whispers Leela, “because my foolish heart will have no one but you.”

Her lips taste of his own lost years, artron sparking static where they touch—but he kisses and kisses her, and kisses her again, and kisses and kisses and kisses her skin—until she tastes, at last, of nothing but herself.

*

He needs less sleep than she does, but even if Narvin were human, he knows he wouldn’t sleep that night.  Not with Leela’s arms close around him, Leela’s slumbering head on his chest.

The window in his TARDIS bedroom is artificial, of course, but the vista it shows is real enough.  It isn’t Gallifrey, and it isn’t Leela’s home, either. They chose a place as they lay warm and tangled last night, a sunrise to witness together—and, true to her word, she wakes just as it’s dawning, stirring sleepily against him and taking his hand.

“Should we go there?” she asks him.  “See it for ourselves?” Even without a hint of psychic contact humming through all their touching skin, he would know that she means more than just the question.   _Are you ready,_ she is asking him, _for something just for us?_

He kisses at her hairline, the scent of her filling his nose, and breathes.  

“Let’s go.”


End file.
